The art of domesticity

Can chores be creative?

I was never meant to be a stay-at-home mum, as I liked earning my own money too much, but when I lost my full-time job as a copywriter (because of being pregnant), I found myself with a delightful new baby and a less-delightful unemployed status.

The first few weeks were about recovering from the birth and gratefully accepting people’s kind offers to make tea, bring over food and generally support me, because I couldn’t easily move around (the baby was big; the birth had been long).

I’d saved £10,000 to supplement the maternity allowance (£500/month) I would get but that would only last so long, and so I needed to think a few steps ahead. I don’t remember ever discussing a scenario where I didn’t return to paid work.

So, after a few months, I thought: now it’s time to get back to work. But I wasn’t sure what work could look like now. I researched all sorts of work-from-home options, like ‘transcription’ (this was long before AI) but I wasn’t really feeling them.

I decided to return to journalism. I’d completed an MA in journalism a few years earlier but got lured into copywriting because it paid so well. Now, I had a baby with me, so I’d write and pitch while she napped in her bouncer, or cot.

Because I was the ‘at home’ parent, most of the ‘at home’ duties fell to me. Cooking, cleaning, shopping etc. I would take my daughter to the shops in her buggy and fill the undercarriage with ingredients for home-cooked meals.

Having worked out of the home for some years, I quite enjoyed that now, I was able to experiment with cooking. I learned how to make pastry and bake quiches. When my husband got home from work, there’d be a freshly-cooked meal waiting for him.

I’ll place the flowers in a vase

As my daughter moved from baby to toddler, I started baking with her. She would crack eggs with her tiny hands and I’d discreetly pick the shell out of the eggy mixture before we mashed in black bananas. We baked a lot. She still loves baking now.

We’d have friends around on a Saturday afternoon and I’d create a spread of delicious cheeses, fresh baguette, fancy crackers, sliced figs and apple. I’d make chutneys to be dolloped on top of the cheese. We’d open a nice bottle of wine.

Now, I don’t want to get all trad wife on you, because I never gave up my career to be the perfect wife and mum - instead, my career was pulled away. And at points, I felt very lonely and confused. I questioned my identity; I panicked about future work.

But I also had some unexpected space to be mother and writer, as well as ‘home-maker’.

I took pride in keeping the home looking nice. I took pride in cooking proper meals. And I enjoyed this balance between motherhood and writing and keeping our home how I liked it, aesthetically. I really do love the look of a clear, clean home.

But I’m a feminist so obviously I had to be ambitious about my career and build it up so that I was earning the same - if not more - than my husband, and set goals and work towards them and tick them off lists one-by-one or, ideally, three at a time.

I got my head down and became fierce about protecting my right to work, as a woman/mother. But I also had another baby - and a difficult birth - and now, there was a potty-training toddler and a newborn baby and I’d launched a business and … stress.

The house stopped looking quite so immaculate. The meals became simpler. I’d usually cover all bases - veg, protein, carbohydrate - but the food was bland. When I synchronised the toddler/baby’s naps, I often slept too. I was really really tired.

Now we were eating spaghetti hoops for lunch

I still had friends round but often, they’d sit and do nothing while I stirred a pan on the hob, with a baby on one hip and a toddler tugging at my leg, and another hand grabbing a pile of cutlery to throw on the table and fish fingers burning in the oven.

I was trying to maintain an air of coping because that’s what I do: I cope.

Perhaps I was giving an air of ‘don’t worry about helping, I can do absolutely everything entirely on my own, you kick back with a beer and leave me to it’, because otherwise: why wouldn’t they have helped?' Really, I wasn’t coping very well. The mask was on.

But I’m a feminist so obviously I continued with my business and got a book deal (I had the first meeting with the publisher when baby two was two months old) and looked after the kids and slept when I could and wrote a novel in the evenings.

I was still house-proud but I wasn’t proud of the house, so I felt on-edge as I looked at the things mounting up everywhere and the wet laundry flapping around the kitchen and the bedsheets that definitely weren’t being changed regularly enough.

And then I launched another business, and that one really took off and I launched a third baby soon after and because by this point, my husband was working with me, I was able to see what it’s like when domesticity and work are truly shared.

I saw what it is to be an ambitious woman who can follow through with her ambitions because someone else (her partner) is buying and cooking the food (delicious, healthy meals) and getting the kids from school and rocking the baby off to sleep.

But the focus was very much work and earning the money - our family’s income was all coming from my online course business - rather than having a beautiful home and baking quiches. We stopped having friends round for dinner in the evenings.

The next few years were like being popped into a washing machine and spinning and getting soaked and being drained and then spinning again, pausing for a moment and then spin spin spin spin spin - hang her out to dry.

We moved to Somerset, from London, and I could pause. But then I was concerned that if I paused too long, I would never get back into gear. I didn’t know what to do, work-wise. I wrote a book and then I felt incredibly lost. Well, until I found Substack.

Back in London

Back in London, three years later, I am living in a small house with my family.

It is often messy, with toys strewn around the sitting room and a clear instruction to not move anything at all while my youngest is at school because the wooden blocks are a farm and he will be returning to it later in the day. I take his instruction.

But then on Fridays, I like to clean. I can do this, because my work as a freelance writer is now like this creative eco-system where everything feeds into everything else and I can focus on writing and being creative and the money simply follows.

I don’t have to work many hours to earn a decent living. And the work is soulful work. I am writing about creativity. I’m teaching people The Creative Way to earn a living online, how to be a freelance writer and how to launch and grow on Substack.

I’m also coaching people who would like to work creatively.

Now that my creative career is flowing and my children are all relatively ok in their different educational settings, I can spend some of my time having a sauna at my local gym, in the mornings, or walking with friends or … cleaning. And sorting.

So, on Fridays…

I open the windows and the back door and I let fresh air move through the house. I put everything away and I dust and hoover. I clear the dining table of the pens and paper and clay and whatever else has been there all week - and place flowers in a vase.

Most recently, I cleared out two cupboards and re-ordered everything in a deeply pleasing way. Now, you can open the cupboards without rice cakes falling on your head or an open bottle of honey leaking out as it’s been left on its side.

I scrubbed and recycled and made a really big effort - I even cleaned out the rubbish bin - and the result was a beautiful, ordered home with little pops of beauty, like these dried flowers that my sister bought us as a moving in present.

Dried flowers from my sister + tins + art that hasn’t been hung yet

My homeschooled son came in and I said: look at how clean it is down here, isn’t it nice? To which he replied: It looks exactly the same as normal. To which I thought: don’t rely on children for compliments on how well you’ve cleaned the home.

But my husband appreciated the effort. And on Saturday morning, when I woke up and went downstairs alone to read my book and drink coffee, I felt I could lean into the space differently. I didn’t keep thinking I should… because I’d done it already.

After this big clean, I found myself taking pride in other chores, too. Like giving the wet clothes a really good shake and noticing how the creases had dropped out as I dangled them over the clothes horse.

I did a shop for ‘weekend bits’ like orange juice, which we never have in the week, and ripe pears to slice over our homemade granola. It felt good to have the essentials but also some little extras. I felt like I was doing a good job of home-maker.

The truth is: I like being the home-maker. I like making our space look and feel warm and welcoming. I like having people round. I like writing and working and earning my own money, and also doing the home. It feels creative, to me.

It’s taken 10 years to feel this way again. I enjoyed the home-making when my first baby was young but when more kids and stressful work and a pandemic came along, it all felt arduous. Now, the kids are older and I have some time back.

I’m wondering if I can take a creative approach to all things home. Even the things that can feel repetitive, like laundry and washing up. I think there can be a sense of completion and satisfaction, in doing a chore. A bit like writing a good poem.

I think we can make anything art, if we choose to.

Annie x

Ps. Making dinner for my kids is a pain in the arse. They don’t want wholesome meals like daal with fresh coriander and chutneys and chilli flakes. They want plain pasta or beans on toast. I’m working on the art of making food I want that my kids want too.